Loading ...March, 2009
Safety Programs Just Have to Make Sense
I was going to write to you about my safety program when a colleague of mine named Joe Brown said something to me that made me rethink things. What he said sounded simple at the time. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how dead on target it was and [...]
Some Memorable April Fool’s Day Hoaxes
1957 Spaghetti Trees: The BBC TV program Panorama runs a story proclaiming the eradication of the despised pest, the spaghetti weevil, and showing the Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. People contact the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees.
1988 Lefty Whoppers: Burger King runs an ad in USA Today, saying that [...]
How to Reduce Fleet Accidents, Part 2 of 2
The first step to improving the safety of your fleet is to implement a motor vehicle review (MVR) program to rate the skills of your drivers. Divide your drivers into three categories: excellent, average and poor and customize a training strategy for each. Step two is to periodically evaluate the training program and identify ways [...]
How to Test a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter
After last week’s safety tip from John R. Lewis, SafetyXChange member, JoAn Douglas of PVS Chemicals, Inc. wrote in to ask: How do you test a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI)?
Good question. Here’s how:
Plug a nightlight into the outlet, turn the nightlight on and press the “Test” button. The nightlight should turn off. Press the [...]
Ladder Safety for Spring Cleaning
Your invite for safety tips inspired me to write this note.
Looking through my windows after a winter of snow, ice and wind, it’s obvious that the view has been affected. Before the proverbial spring cleaning takes hold, we should remind ourselves how diligent we are at occupational safety and bring it “home” with us.
My windows [...]
Impact of the New REACH Law
We don’t usually discuss European chemical safety laws. But when those laws stretch across the Atlantic and have a direct impact on companies in the U.S. and Canada, they become an important topic of conversation for SafetyXChange. Enter REACH—arguably one of the most significant imports from Europe since, I don’t know, the Yugo.
What Is REACH [...]
The Reach of REACH
Here are some numbers demonstrating the wide scope of the REACH requirements:
30,000 The approximate number of chemicals and substances covered by REACH
37 The number of states where dangerous chemicals covered by REACH are produced or imported (not including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands)
85 or more The number of chemicals and substances that are produced [...]
